Marketing automation software
Marketing automation platforms run nurture campaigns, score leads and sync with your CRM so the right message reaches the right person at the right time. Compare them by contact-based pricing, channels covered and how much setup they need.
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How to choose marketing automation software
Name the messages you want to send automatically. "Welcome new sign-ups", "chase abandoned carts" and "warm up leads before a sales call" are three very different projects. Write yours as a list of triggers and outcomes before you look at any tool. Vendors sell the same word, automation, for products that share almost nothing.
Match the tool to your kind of business. B2B teams with long sales cycles look at HubSpot Marketing Hub, Act-On, Adobe Marketo Engage and Salesforce Account Engagement. Product and app teams that message users based on behaviour look at Braze, Iterable and Customer.io. Small businesses that want email, CRM and automation under one login look at ActiveCampaign, Brevo or EngageBay. Online shops lean towards Klaviyo and Omnisend.
Check your data first. Automation runs on what you know about people: purchases, page visits, plan type, last login. If that data lives in four systems, ask how each tool pulls it in. A native connector to your CRM, shop or product database beats a spreadsheet upload every time. Teams that skip this step end up sending clever messages to the wrong people.
Look at how you build journeys. Some tools give you a visual canvas where you drag steps and branches. Others use a simple if-then list. Canvases show complex logic clearly. Lists are faster for simple flows. Try building one real journey in a trial. Pick a flow with a delay, a branch and an exit rule, since that's where weak builders show.
Plan who runs it. A tool that needs an engineer for every change stalls fast. A tool marketers run themselves needs a clean editor, reusable templates and sensible permission levels. Ask who will own it day to day and choose around that person.
How much does marketing automation cost?
Prices vary more here than in almost any other category. Of the 26 tools in our directory, 15 publish a starting price and 11 ask you to request a quote, including Adobe Marketo Engage, Oracle Eloqua, Act-On, Braze, Iterable and MoEngage. We checked figures on vendor pages in November 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.
Small-business tools start low. Brevo begins at $9, ActiveCampaign at $15, Moosend at $16, GetResponse at $19 and Encharge at $49. MailerLite, Omnisend, Klaviyo and EngageBay have free plans with tight limits. Mid-market tools cost more: Customer.io starts at $100 a month, Userlist at $149 and Keap at $249. At the top, Salesforce Account Engagement starts at $1,250 a month on annual billing for its Growth plan, and rises to $2,750 on Plus and $4,400 on Advanced.
Contacts drive the bill almost everywhere. Customer.io charges by profile and adds overages. Userlist and Salesforce Account Engagement price by contact count. A plan that looks cheap at 2,000 contacts can cost far more at 50,000. Ask each vendor for a quote at your list size now and at double that.
Budget for more than the licence. Enterprise tools often need an implementation partner. Ask about onboarding fees, SMS credits, and add-ons for extra sending domains or dedicated IPs. Mautic is open source and free to download, but you pay for hosting, upkeep and someone who knows how to run it.
Common mistakes when choosing marketing automation
Buying too much software is the big one. A twelve-step lifecycle program needs different tools than a welcome email and a re-engagement nudge. Start with the five automations that move revenue, and add more later.
Skipping data quality comes second. Duplicate contacts, missing consent flags and inconsistent tags break automations quietly, and you only notice when a customer gets the wrong email. Clean up before you build.
Don't ignore consent and unsubscribes. Check how each tool stores consent, handles opt-outs across channels and supports the rules that apply to your audience, such as GDPR.
Last: don't automate before you've tested manually. Send a version by hand first. If it doesn't work as a one-off, a workflow won't fix it.
Marketing automation questions people ask
What's the difference between marketing automation and email marketing?
Email marketing sends campaigns to a list. Marketing automation sends messages triggered by behaviour or data, across email and often SMS, push or in-app. Many email tools include some automation. If you mostly send newsletters, start with our email marketing category.
Which tool is best for a small business?
ActiveCampaign, Brevo and EngageBay give small teams automation without enterprise pricing. Compare plans at your list size, because that's where prices diverge.
How long does it take to set up?
A small-business tool runs in days. An enterprise platform with CRM sync, scoring and approval flows takes weeks or months. Plan for data cleanup and testing as well as configuration.
Do I need a CRM to use marketing automation?
Not always. Many tools have a built-in contact database. B2B teams usually want a connection to a CRM, so sales sees what marketing sends.
Can I switch tools later?
Yes, though workflows rarely transfer. Export contacts, tags and consent records, and rebuild journeys in the new tool. Ask about export formats before you sign.
Ready to compare? Put two or three tools side by side and check plans at your real contact count.